Prologue

A Reawakening

I'm all over the place with my writing, since I only ever upload chapters roughly once every 2-4 months and they are usually short one shots. This one is a bit more niche, inspired by the Splatoon franchise and its lore. Specifically, the stories where humans reawaken to a world populated by sentient, evolved squids and octopi. It could make for great sci-if if it wasn't already centered around a game primarily marketed at people under 18.

Notes: This story is going to be heavily influenced by stories such as "The Legacy of Humanity", "The Thin Ice of Cephalopod Politics", and "S2: Remainder". As such, it'll be a fairly typical "human[s] awake[s] from cryostasis in the distant future and meet the new sentient species" story. The events of the story will more than likely take place during and/or after the main story of the second game, and the Octo Expansion DLC will have little to no importance. However, I will continually reference real world songs, games and movies because I want a big focus of this story to be on my human character or characters introducing more of their pop culture to the Inklings and Octarians.

Anyways, here we go...

—

Humanity

The Near Future

Some of humanity had tried its best to prepare an ark for the upcoming flood, while some tried to prevent it altogether. Ultimately, it was the former group that had been in the right.

Rising sea levels and escalating tensions between the few first world countries to remain led to some of those countries initiating programs to prepare for the downfall of most of who was left. Most countries with enough political power quickly gathered up as many resources as they could afford, bringing together their best and brightest. Together, each nation tried to find a solution that could ensure that a small part of humanity could survive.

It was almost unanimously agreed upon that space was the best option. Every large nation had believed that since there would soon be no more landmass on Earth, they could only take to the stars.

Except for one, of course.

The leader of this particular country was an unconventional person, and said person had brought along his smartest and argued that humanity could stay on Earth, locked in a comatose, freezing state, while Mother Nature took a detox and recovered from the damage inflicted upon it by humans. This leader, when he was shot down and generally ignored, elected by to go his own route as well as the route of the rest of the world.

This was why, one day, a few months from that meeting, roughly ten thousand of the world's smartest, strongest, most capable boarded a spaceship and took off for the stars and an eventual destination, with supplies that would last for centuries and some of humanity's best artistic, military, and practical work on board. However at the same time, a couple hundred members of that one particular country would stay behind.

These men and women had been chosen to remain in cryostasis on Earth for millennia, while the Earth healed itself. Then, when the time came, one man or woman would be awakened before the rest. This lucky (or unlucky) person would be tasked with scouting out the new world around him or her, making sure that it would be safe to inhabit and establishing contact with new sentient species if there were any. Then they would awaken the rest of the chosen group, and said group would start to adjust to their new circumstances.

The person selected for the job would have to be smart, strong and competent. Most importantly, they would need to know a lot about human culture. Unfortunately for them, they wouldn't know that they were picked for the job until after they exited cryo.

This is why, although he didn't expect himself to be the first man to awake in the future, 22-year-old Nathan Eastbrook was unsurprised when he found out he was handpicked to do just that.

Damn you, Murphy's Law.

—

The Octarian Empire

The Distant Future

One of the minor advantages that the Octarians have over Inklings is that they were better at conserving power.

This was a necessity, since the Inklings had a tendency to hoard the main source of electricity for both races. The Zapfish were the only source of power they could find, and since the Inklings held the majority of those (the great Zapfish included), the Octarian Empire was in the midst of a fairly nasty power crisis. With the former ruler DJ Octavio's planned theft of the Zapfish thwarted nearly two years ago, he had been labeled a terrorist by some of the Inklings that had stopped him. Morale had been very low in the short time since, with most of the once mighty Octarians struggling to maintain their nation.

This is where the current Queen had stepped in. Formerly one of Octavio's most efficient generals, she had managed to round up the majority of the remaining military forces and convince them that their Empire would be better off if Octavio wasn't in charge. She had then staged a wildly successful coup d'etat, taking the throne away from the arrogant king.

Her new citizens were surprisingly okay with it, all things considered. She had half expected them to revolt against her because she was an Octoling, and Octolings were usually considered more aggressive and less capable of decision making. However, since Octavio had failed to resolve the power crisis and instead elected to make horrid music (in the Queen's opinion), she figured that if she could find a way to solve the power problem, she would be able to win these people over.

Thankfully, she had a possible solution. She planned on going old school.

She had sent out a few expeditions to see if they could find any technology belonging to the precursors that had come before them as a species, despite what was said by her advisors. They argued that the precursors weren't all that smart, since they had effectively killed themselves off. She went against them anyways.

Her gambit absolutely paid off. One of her teams had struck the jackpot by coming across a massive site just outside of Octo Valley, and a good distance from Inkopolis as well. The thing that had interested her immediately was the flashing lights that had been discovered.

The precursors could make power without the Zapfish, so of course she put the best she had on site. Her best people would bring the best results, and they would leave little to chance. She had predicted that, if all went well, they would have their own power within a little under a year.

But Queen Retvi of the Octarian Empire could not predict a precursor showing up alive and well.

—

The Octarian Expedition

Near The Site of the Precursors

Just Outside Octo Valley.

While the queen was somewhat optimistic about the prospects of the expedition, the head archeologist on the expedition was getting increasingly frustrated with her coworkers. To say the least, a certain Persephone Eldoris was soon going to have a very difficult time controlling her anger if they kept at it.

Persephone was one of the few Octolings in the Octarian Empire that avoided a career in the military. Since Octolings possessed greater physical strength than standard Octarians (and a mean streak to boot), it was extremely rare for Octolings to continue their originally chosen careers upon transforming into one. Instead, they were usually given hardcore training and they then became soldiers. Persephone was an exception to this rule.

Although Persephone was a tall, imposing figure, even among Octolings, she considered her brain to be her singular greatest asset. When she was still an Octarian, she had been fascinated by the idea of the species that had come before hers. She had wanted to know more about how they had lived their lives, and while both Inklings and Octarians had recovered a few pieces of tech that had belonged to them (often referred to as "precursors", of course), Persephone had believed that they had only scratched the surface. That fascination and belief held steadfast even after her "evolution".

This find that she was working on was supposed to be the biggest collection of materials created by the precursors ever found, and somehow the Inklings had no idea they were missing it. Persephone could have been far more excited about if she wasn't in the midst of being harassed by her Octarian coworkers.

See, these coworkers of hers were not used to working with a full blown Octoling, and they had decided to annoy her due to her sub-species. She was frequently distracted and taken away from her work by some of the ruder Octarians on the scene, and they would frequently ask her to help them with some form of manual labor since Octolings possessed a lot of physical strength. She had needed to continuously remind them that she was actually the brains behind their operation, and she eventually took to threatening them as well.

So here Persephone was a few hours later, striding through a complex, that strangely, had lit up as soon as she had walked in with her entourage. And while their job was to salvage what they could, she couldn't help it as her anger led to childish glee at the thought of what they could possibly find. Obviously, however, their main goal was to obtain some sort of power source, since the precursors were able to harness power without Zapfish.

(That fact, to Persephone, proved that the previous species was far smarter than most gave them credit for, since neither Inklings nor Octarians had figured out how to do that yet.)

But nonetheless, the materials they had come across, while not a permanent solution, could sustain the Octarians' energy needs for a good couple of years. The search party had concluded that their search, for today at least, was a resounding success, and they would return tomorrow.

However, as they were setting themselves up to leave, an unknown noise blared throughout the building. It almost sounded... musical.

Persephone and her search party had no clue about what they were in for.

—

So, this is the prologue. As someone who doesn't play the games often, I'd like to think I did a pretty decent job.

I wanted to send most of the remaining humans off to space to explain why so few would be present and to do a little world building as well. I more than likely will keep Nathan as the only human awake for a good while, and most of the other humans will be unimportant in comparison.

There we be three main perspectives for these early chapters: I will mainly alternate between Nathan (human OC) and Persephone (Octoling OC), and I will occasionally use the Queen's P.O.V. as well. Eventually, the Squid Sisters and Off The Hook will make their own appearances as well. Again, this story is heavily influenced by titles such as "The Thin Ice Of Cephalopod Politics" and "The Sins of Humanity". Queen Retvi is actually the same queen from the former story, so shoutout to Hydraliskenmaster for a great story and a solid character. I don't own Splatoon or Nintendo. I only own my OCs.

Next Up: Persephone's search party meets Nathan and they struggle to make first impressions while Joey Bada$$'s "For My People" plays in the background.